O Star of Wonder
by red for revolution
Summary: Twelve ficlets based on twelve Christmas prompts. Various characters and pairings. #12 Valjean has an epiphany.
1. Baby (Eponine, Cosette, Gavroche)

**Baby (Éponine, Cosette, Gavroche, 1822)**

"Papa?" Éponine asks, crawling onto her father's lap as he sits before the fire.

"Yes, darling?"

"Why is Mama screaming so?"

"Because she's having a baby."

Éponine tosses her head. "I'm never having a baby, then. It sounds painful."

"Yes, it does."

But Éponine changes her mind when she meets her new baby brother, lying in a little cot by the bed. Her mother is frantically talking to her father in a hushed whisper, but Éponine pays them no heed, hanging over the cradle and stroking the back of her finger along the baby's cheek, softer than the velvet dress she has hanging in her wardrobe and wrinkled like a piece of fruit that has been left too long under the glare of the sun.

Little Cosette trembles in the doorway, holding the too-heavy pail of water that the midwife told her to fetch, watching how tender the older girl is with the new baby, and wondering if her mother was ever like that to her, or if her mother paid no heed to her child like the Thenardiess is doing now.

She wishes she had an older sister who would take care of her.

_a/n I know this has been done by several people, but eh, here's my take. See my profile for the way I characterise some of the people - and Merry Christmas. For Dad. _


	2. Candles (Fantine)

**Candles (Fantine, 1823) **

She paces up and down her patch, clutching her raggedy shawl close to her shoulders. Not many are out tonight, but she hopes that someone interested in paying for her services will wander this way, perhaps drunk on goodwill and good wine and disposed to be generous. Candles flicker in a window across the way, orange-yellow-gold, and for a moment, Fantine is mesmerised, the rest of the world fading out until there's nothing but one flame, the others surrounding it in a bright halo of colour against the dank darkness. It's hopeful, she decides. Light beating back the night.

Then a hand falls on her shoulder, and she's met with a smile unsteady with absinthe, eyes roving across her body. Even with her pitifully boy-short hair and two missing teeth, Fantine is still striking. She knows it as she turns, cocking one hip in a practised gesture.

"How much?" the man asks.

"Five francs." She's pushing it, she knows. But with a few other customers, she should be able to send enough money out to Montfermeil for Christmas for her daughter. Maybe a little extra, for presents. At least one of them will be in comfort this winter.

He's too far past drunk to care. "Done."

So she takes his hand, and lets him lead her to a deserted corner, an alleyway inhabited by no-one but the rats. And when he's finally done, dropping the money into her hand and weaving away without a glance back, she adjusts her shawl and turns back to pacing. The candle dances away, and Fantine curses it for being so cheerful.

_Please review - I'd love to hear from you._


	3. Sainte Nuit (Javert)

**Sainte Nuit (Javert, 1828) **

He's out on patrol, truncheon tucked crisply under his arm. Undoubtedly, he could have ordered a pair of sergeants to do it, it is, after all, their duty and beneath that of an inspector, but apart from the lowlife emerging to hunt by night in the alleys of Les Halles, it's peaceful. Quiet. Quieter than the gendarmerie, which at this time of year is always bursting at the seams with drunkards and unregistered prostitutes. And in any case, they all have families waiting for them by fires, whilst he only has a cold room in a neat, well-kept tenement and the company of his own breathing.

He slows down from a brisk walk to a sort of amble, stopping on the Pont Neuf for a second to gaze up at the stars. It has always been the one pastime he has allowed himself, the stars, those lights a thousand thousand miles distant in the sky as black as a sea of ink. No-one would ever ask, but he imagines their surprise if they knew that he could trace the outlines of every constellation hung there by the hand of God when He created the world. He gives a small sigh, and begins his walk again. No doubt there are criminals out, disturbing the silence of the night with their robbing, attacking, murdering.

His lip curls. He knows that he will never rid the city of crime. There is always someone willing to turn to vile actions for greed, for selfishness. (It does not even cross his mind that desperation, that hunger gnawing at a person's insides, would do the same for an honest person as the sight of gold glinting in a jeweller's shop for a dishonest one.) To him, thieves and murderers are like the night, close, stifling.

Thank God there are stars to keep the darkness at bay.

_A/N Merry Christmas everyone! I'd love to hear from some more of you - as a Christmas present? :) R._


	4. Angels (Marius, Eponine)

** Angels (Éponine, Marius, 1830)**

The first time she sees him, dragging his feather-light carry-on up the stairs of the Gorbeau tenement, she cannot breathe. Without a single doubt, she knows that he's the most beautiful person she's ever seen, and when he smiles at her as he passes, she's lost.

...

It doesn't take long to become friends, though she has a niggling feeling that sometimes, he's only tolerating her after a long day translating articles and going to lectures as she hovers in front of his mirror, singing in a rough, rasping voice and chattering in a way that would be charming had she been prettier. He does his work at the wonky little table, and she pretends she can read his books, snatching them off the shelf and leafing through the pages carefully until her father or mother screeches from the room next-door, and she has to dart away, throwing a smile that is all missing, yellowing teeth and cut, chafed lips over her shoulder. He always smiles back, every time.

...

At Christmastime, when the snow is falling, blanketing the world in a layer of white icing like she's seen in the windows of patisseries before she is uncompromisingly chased away lest she scare off customers, she slips into his garret again. Her feet are freezing, but she's not going to wear those horrible shoes any longer, not with their flapping soles that are perpetually covered with a thin layer of ice. He's talking to one of his friends in a low voice, the one with the wildly curly chestnut hair and obnoxiously cheerful expression. He doesn't see her for a second, and she's free to stare at his handsome profile, the way his dark hair falls across his face. Then he's raising his head, and looking directly at her in a way that makes her breath catch in her throat, even though she knows he doesn't see her like that, at least not yet.

"Just a moment, 'Ponine. We're almost finished."

She nods, and turns back to the shelf he's put up across one wall, takes a book and flips through it, understanding about half of the words in it. It's in French, but it feels as though it could be an entirely different language all together, at least, to her. Then the friend is leaving with a smile for her - how nice his friends are in comparison to the people she usually has to spend time with - and Marius is sitting down on his pallet.

"How are you?"

"The same as I was this morning," she says, trying that thing that the lovely young ladies strolling in the Luxembourg Gardens do of filtering her look through her lashes. He doesn't even notice. "How are you?"

"Fine. Busy. Studying occupies enough time as it is without everything else...but it's alright. I shall have to make time for it."

Éponine has lost interest by now, wanders over to stand at his shoulder. There's a paper thing, slightly crumpled, lying on his desk. "What's this?"

"That?" His brow crumples for a moment, and she wants nothing more than to kiss him until it smoothes out again. "Oh, it's an angel. A paper angel. Prouvaire was making them to hang around the Musain. You can keep it, if you like."

"Truly?" Éponine stares at him, and he nods.

"Of course. Merry Christmas, 'Ponine."

"Merry Christmas, Monsieur Marius."

_Please review if you have the time._


	5. Carols, Pere Noel (Valjean, Cosette)

**Carols, Père Noël (Valjean, Cosette, 1829)**

"Papa, look," Cosette says, sliding onto the pianoforte stool with the awkward grace that is peculiar to girls who are not quite so little anymore, but not quite grown. She stretches her fingers and begins to play, the familiar strains of Les anges dans nos campagnes fills their small sitting room in the newly-acquired house on the Rue Plumet.

"It's lovely, cherie," Valjean says gently, closing his eyes and listening to her sweet voice join the plink-plonk of the instrument. He had never been one for music himself, in days gone past, at first too poor to waste time on it, for music is an expensive hobby to pursue, second, it was only a way of keeping in time with the other men in the chain gang. During his days as Monsieur Madaleine, he attended his fair share of carol concerts, but nothing compares to this, his daughter playing carols for him in their first Christmas outside of the convent.

Cosette moves onto D'où viens-tu, bergère? and after she's exhausted the sheet music he bought for her a few weeks previously, she comes to curl up beside him.

"Have you written your letter to Père Noël yet, petite?"

Cosette lifts her head from his shoulder, brown eyes startled. "Am I not too old for Père Noël, Papa? I'm almost fourteen..."

"Cherie, as long as you live under this roof you will never be too old for Père Noël. Unless, of course, you wish him to stop coming?"

"No, I do not. Can we make sure we have a carrot in, for his donkey, Papa?"

"Yes, Cosette, of course we can."

There is silence for a little longer, then she sighs and settles herself further into his arms. "Did you have Père Noël when you were a child?"

"Yes," he says, inwardly cringing at the lie. Cosette nods.

"What sort of things did he bring you?"

"He brought me you."


	6. Mince Pies (Les Amis)

**Mince Pies (Les Amis, 1830)**

"Courfeyrac, you are late," Enjolras says severely from behind his book as the aforementioned friend bursts in, brushing off the snow that speckles against the black material.

"I'm sorry, I promise..."

Enjolras raises an eyebrow. Courfeyrac, completely unperturbed, beams and puts down a basket.

"What's in there?" Joly tries to lift a corner of the cloth covering it, but Courfeyrac slaps his hand away.

"Later."

...

After the meeting, when all but the inner circle have trickled away to spend time with their families or mistresses, Courfeyrac whispers something in Louison's ear and pulls chairs into a circle. "You are all sitting here...yes, even you Enjolras. No, I don't care in the slightest about that article, it's Christmas."

Enjolras glares at him for a second, but Courfeyrac refuses to wilt as so many others have done so under the icy blueness of Enjolras' irritation, and with a bit more cajoling, and the rest of the Amis settling in, Enjolras gives up and takes the seat next to Combeferre.

"What, exactly, are we doing?"

"We are sampling an English delicacy known as mince pies," Courfeyrac says, delightedly mangling the English.

"Where on earth..."

"My lovely mistress..."

"Which one?" Bahorel asks with a mischeivous smirk.

"My lovely English mistress..."

"What happened to your old one?"

"Oh, you know. We parted ways."

"That was only a week - surely this is a new record."

"I shall ignore that comment. In any case, gentlemen, Lousin is bringing us mulled wine, and we will have a feast!"

"And English one. What happened to the homeland, exactly?"

"We're embracing another culture, one who happens to have a constitutional monarchy with little direct power in political proceedings. Perhaps we should follow their example as a stepping stone to the Republic."

"Perhaps." Enjolras looks interested for a second. "But then again it is still a monarchy. There is still a ruling class and people starving in the streets."

"But far less so than we have here, I am led to believe," Combeferre interjects.

"Still..." Enjolras looks set to take off on another of his soaring flights of rhetoric. Courfeyrac groans.

"Not now! The two of you live in the same apartment building. Once we've done you can discuss England and France and different types of monarchy as much as you wish, but for now, we are celebrating."

"Alright, alright," Combeferre holds up his hands in surrender. "Pass them around, then."

Courfeyrac even invites Grantaire over from his corner, and they sit for hours, eating mince pies and talking of absolutely nothing in particular, which, Courfeyrac thinks, is nice for a change, leaning back in his chair. Jehan starts to compose a sonnet with an unhelpful Bahorel and a slightly more useful Marius, Joly and Bossuet persuade Enjolras into actually drinking some of his mulled wine, and at the end of the evening, Courfeyrac manages to batter Feuilly into submission over who should take the rest of the mince pies home with them. All in all, he thinks, as he lets himself back into his apartment, it's been a pretty good Christmas Eve.

_Please review! :)_


	7. Mistletoe (Cosette, Marius)

**Mistletoe (Cosette, Marius, 1831)**

It's late out in the garden, and Cosette is hurriedly attempting to clear some of the snow from their bench with her gloved hands, which are becoming wetter and soggier the more snow she sweeps onto the ground. It's a small sacrifice, she thinks, wet hands or an entire dress to be sent to the laundry, but oh, how cold her hands are! She loves the snow, loves playing in it with her Papa even though now as a grown-up girl of sixteen she is really too old for it, but sometimes she wishes that snow was warm. What a ludicrous thought. Warm snow.

Someone clears his throat behind her, and she turns and beams. "You're here."

He takes her hand and bows over it. Even after almost six months of seeing each other like this, she still gets butterflies tumbling around her stomach. "I know. How are you?"

"Cold. But the snow is so magical, don't you think?"

"It makes getting around the city that much harder. I thought the gamins would die of laughter when I almost slipped over in the street outside the Musain," Marius says ruefully. "Gavroche has been imitating me for days."

"At least your misfortune is amusing to someone."

"I suppose."

He glances up above her head. "Well."

"Well?"

"There seems to be a certain plant growing above us," he tells her, almost mischeivous. Cosette follows his gaze - a ball of light leaves and white berries dangles tantalisingly out of reach. Oh yes, she'd picked a bit - ripping her petticoats in the process - to hang at the entrance to her bedroom. She should have realised.

"Aren't you going to follow through with the tradition?" she asks playfully. Marius smiles, cups her cheek.

"Gladly."

_A/N I know that they didn't really meet in the winter, but I'm taking a bit of artistic license! Please review if you have time._


	8. Nutcracker (Marius, Monsieur Gillenorman

**Nutcracker (Monsieur Gillenormand, Marius, 1816)**

"And this one's for you, you young scallywag," Monsieur Gillenormand barks as Nicolette brings a wrapped present to Marius' place at the dinner table. Marius carefully unwraps it with none of the usual fervour of children his age in a crackling of paper, lifting out a brightly-painted wooden doll, a soldier.

"Wh...what is it, grandfather?"

"It's a nutcracker," the old gentleman says. "Nicolette!"

The maid puts a bowl of walnuts in front of him, and shows him how to do it. Marius has a go himself, then, struggling for a second, before the shell cracks open with a satisfying pop. His grandfather almost smiles, and then he is sent up to his room to prepare for his daily walk to one of his grandfather's many salons.

Even, years later, when he leaves home in a slamming of doors and raised voices, he still takes the nutcracker with him, hides it deep in his carry-on where it stays until, after a long

time has passed and he has his own son, a precocious little boy who runs around the house with sticky hands and stickier smile, chased by his beautiful wife, he finds it, hidden away and gathering dust.

He gives it to his little boy that Christmas and laughs at the way his face lights up.

_Please review if you have time._


	9. Nativity (Combeferre, Enjolras)

**Nativity (Combeferre, Enjolras, 1831)**

It's getting dark, and Combeferre is set on decorating his apartment even though there is a pile of work from medical school and several pamphlets sitting on his desk and begging to be finished. "No," he says to the pile of paper. "I've had enough of you for one night."

"Excuse me?"

"Enjolras, please," Combeferre turns to look at his friend standing in the doorway with a bemused expression on his face. "If you use that spare key, please make some noise. You scare the life out of me when you just appear like that."

"Sorry," Enjolras says, completely unrepentant. "I was merely wondering..."

"Whether I have the pamphlet done? No, I don't. I'm putting up my decorations and then I...no, I'm not doing work tonight. Would you care to join me?"

To his complete and utter surprise, Enjolras nods, and smiles, picking up the falling-apart cardboard box on the table. "These?"

"Yes."

They spend an enjoyable half-hour setting out the nativity scene on Combeferre's windowsill, next to stack of heavy medical tomes and hanging evergreen branches above the fireplace. By the time they are finished, it has started to snow outside again, pale flakes speckling the night sky.

Enjolras sits for a while, looking at the figurines illuminated by the streetlamp outside, the calmness of Mary's face, the sweeping wings of the angel, the little painted gold star, the shepherds with sheep tucked under their arms, the kings bearing their gifts. After a while he says quietly, "I didn't realise you believed in organised religion."

"I don't. But there's something so hopeful about Christmas. Hope for the hopeless. Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the Kingdom of Heaven."

"You're right," Enjolras muses, gently touching the head of the baby Jesus lying serenely in his manger. "For Christ was born an abaisse too, was he not?"

Combeferre smiles. "I know. He was. And he cared for the poor, the normal people rather than the religious leaders. He loved them. I like that about Christianity, but I don't like the way that some of its teachings are interpreted, that before the Revolution, Jesus preached chastity, but the bishops lived in splendour whilst others went without."

"I agree," Enjolras says, tilting his head to one side, the way he always does when he thinks. Some of his hair falls out of its leather tie, and Combeferre brushes it to one side. "The principles of Christianity are good, but I cannot hold with a religion that lets the poor starve in the streets and women prostitute themselves for money."

Combeferre raises his glass. "Well, here's to Christmas, and to the New Year. May it be prosperous."

"And revolutionary," Enjolras adds, sharing a brief smile with his friend.

_I know it isn't really Christmastime anymore, but they're almost all finished and I hate abandoning a story halfway through! Please review! :)_


	10. Advent Calendar (Enjolras)

Advent Calendar (Enjolras, 1812)

"Renè, your Oma is here!"

"Maman!" He rushes into her open arms, and she pulls him close, swinging him into the air and laughing along with him.

"You are getting far too heavy for that, my sweet," she says, setting him down and brushing a lock of fair hair out of his face.

"And getting taller every time I see you," the heavily accented voice of his Oma chimes out from behind him, clear as a bell even though she's older than Renè could ever comprehend at the tender age of six years. "And blonder! It looks like we will make a German of you yet."

His nanny is hovering behind him, and at a kind word from his mother, she bobs a little curtsey and disappears down the servant stairs - Renè has a habit of following her. Even though his father doesn't like it, the servants are very warm and welcoming and always let him sit with a cup of milk and talk to him in-between their duties. He watches the footmen polish silver and the lady's maid sew his mother's dresses, the scullery maids with their rough, chapped hands and the butler with his quiet, authoritative air, and wonders why he doesn't have to learn to cook and clean and sew.

(When he says this to them, they just laugh and ruffle his hair. He's too little to understand, they say., too small to realise that this-is-the-way-the-world-works.)

"Look," Oma has settled herself in the rocking chair and beckoned for him to climb up onto her lap. He can feel the silk of her day-dress slippery under his fingers. "I brought you this." She tips a pile of brightly decorated boxes out of her bag, each with a numble boldly engraved on it.

"What is it, Oma?"

"It is an advent calendar, liebling. They are all the rage in Hamburg at the moment. You know all about advent?"

"It is the time where we wait for our Lord Jesus to be born," Renè recites dutifully. "He's born on Christmas, isn't he Maman?"

"Yes, he is."

"So for every day of Advent, you open the box with the right number on it, and there will be something inside waiting for you."

"Can I open it now?"

"No, liebling, you must wait until the start of Advent."

"How many days?"

"Three."

"Three days?"

"Yes."

When his nanny has returned and he's run off to play, his mother starts to set the boxes up in neat little stacks above the fire. "Such a spirited boy. You've raised him well, Frieda."

"Thank you, Mumie. I just..." she glances over her shoulder at her son, who is happily sitting and listening to his nanny read to him.

"You just..."

"I just worry that sometimes he gets himself into too much trouble. And that someday he won't be able to charm his way out of it with a smile and a few pretty words."

"Well," her mother says complacently, rocking the chair back and forth gently. "That day is a long way away yet, if it ever does come. And perhaps the appearance of a sibling will help make him more responsible."

"How did you know?" Frieda gapes at her mother in astonishment.

"Mother's instincts, my darling, mother's instincts. Congratulations."

_A/N I got the idea that Enjolras is part German from another author, who had Courfeyrac mistake him for being German! Please review - I'd love to hear from you. _


	11. Boxes (Marius, Cosette, Valjean)

**Boxes (Valjean, Cosette, Marius, 1834) **

"Oh, Papa," Cosette cries, helping him lower himself into a chair. "I am so glad you called by. Look what Marius found for me for Christmas!"

She scoops up a tiny tortoiseshell kitten with a tear in one ear and places it gently in Valjean's lap. "I've named her La Delphine, because she's like an opera singer - constantly demanding attention!"

Marius is laughing as the kitten gaily bounds off Valjean's lap and straight into the open boxes that litter the drawing room floor, rolling over onto her back and clawing at the card. One of her ears has folded over, giving her a distinctly mad look as she grapples with the box as though it's a fierce enemy.

They're all laughing as she releases the box, and begins to eye her tail suspiciously, the way it swishes, back-and-forth, back-and-forth across the Persian rug that lies bright against the floorboards. Then suddenly, pounce, she's rolling over herself again, trying to catch the ever-alluring tail that keeps flicking infuriatingly out of reach. After a few seconds, she rights herself, sitting up primly and beginning to wash her sides, as though she's embarrassed by this display of high spirits that is ever-so-unbecoming to a lady (which she most certainly is).

Cosette rests a hand on her very pregnant stomach, and sits herself at her father's feet, Marius scooping up the kitten and coming to join them, both of them resting their heads against his knees.

"Merry Christmas, Papa," Cosette says, pulling his hand down to feel the baby kick. "Or soon to be Grandpapa."

Valjean just smiles. This baby is the best present all three of them could have hoped for, and every one of them knows it.

_Please review!_


	12. Epiphany (Valjean, M Myriel)

**Epiphany (Valjean, M. Myriel) **

He's thought about it many times before. The bishop, the silver, the stealing (even though, even after all these years, the memory of it still sends shivers of guilt sprinting their way up his spine). He remembers the feeling of being forgiven, the love in the old man's eyes for a thief, a despicable ex-convict, a man on parole for the rest of his life forever condemned to walk alone because of those yellow papers stuffed in his pocket.

It was an epiphany, to learn that there were still good men in the world - not the men who wore goodness as a cloak to shrug off whenever it pleased him, not goodness as the half of a whole - goodness as a light, radiating out of a person because they were simply not able to hide it.

Looking back over his life, he's been proven wrong so many times, about so many things, and it delights him that some things aren't originally as they seem. It was an epiphany, nine years ago, to know that he was capable of loving someone as fiercely as he has loved Cosette, it is an epiphany now to see the beautiful, practical, lovely young woman she has become and to realise belatedly that it was because of him that she turned out like this.

It was an epiphany, on the barricades, to see that those young men, so full of life, were willing to give it all up in the hope of a better tomorrow. He's been seeing them a lot behind his eyes, recently, thinking of the boys who died so that the future would be better for everyone, for people like him, for people like Fantine, even for people like Javert, who would be able to give his allegiance to a better, more just law. He thinks that he'll be seeing all of them wherever he's heading when finally, his eyes don't open any longer. Well, all of them except one, and now, now he's so pleased that he saved Marius, for now Cosette has someone who will take care of her, who will love and cherish her for the rest of her days like she deserves to be loved and cherished, his little girl, though really, she is not so little now.

But look, there she is, kneeling before him in her wedding finery, and there is Marius, and he can just about hear the words they are saying. And then there is nothing, but Fantine's kind eyes, and M. Myriel standing behind her and smiling, so gently and kindly with what almost seems to be a halo around his head. All of those boys are waiting in the darkness behind him, and behind them, ever more people, people and people and people and as he stands, no longer old and weak and shaky, hearing Cosette cry behind him (_I'm sorry, my darling_, he thinks, _but this is how it was always meant to end_), he finally feels complete.

**Fin.**


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